The IDentity Festival's forward-thinking dance music hits Jiffy Lube Live

Pictures from the 13th annual Starscape Festival at Fort Armistead in Baltimore on June 4, 2011.

Wesley Case

Let's first get this out of the way: I'm no dance-music expert. My appreciation is genuine but would be considered cursory by DFA-heads: I've seen an A-Trak set, love LCD Soundsystem and know how to hit a dance floor without making a complete fool out of myself. (Friends might question that last tidbit.) But when I saw theIDentity Festival, a celebration of forward-thinking electronic music, was today at Jiffy Lube Live, I had to blog about it.

The Skullcandy main stage has the Grade A headliners: Kaskade, Afrojack and Disco Biscuits to name a few, but I'm more intrigued by the Rockstar Dim Mak Stage. Anchored by Steve Aoki, who I've seen tear down a set and was last in the area for Starscape (relive the memories in the video above), this secondary stage features Skrillex, Hercules and the Love Affair, DJ Shadow and more.

The most intriguing name on the Dim Mak list is DFA's Holy Ghost!. Unfortunately, their set is ending as I type this (2:00 p.m. for those lucky enough to see it), so I'll use this time to shine some light for the unaware. The New York City duo of Nick Millhiser and Alex Frankel are riding a nice wave after they released a self-titled record in April. (b contributor Brandon Soderberg has a nice blurb at Pitchfork about one of the album's highlights, "Jam for Jerry.") Check out the group's video for "Wait & See" below. (No, they're not in their 50s, that's their fathers starring in the clip.)

If this sounds like your idea of a great night, leave work now and get to Bristow, Va. Aoki goes on at 7:45 p.m. Kaskade (9:30 p.m) and White Shadow (10 p.m., Advent Stage) close out the festival. $40-$100.